Steins;Gate - Episode 11

Despite all of the accumulated confusion for Okabe in the light of the various world-shifting changes caused by the various D-mails sent by the Future Gadget Lab, he and his group continue with their experiments apace.

With a 42" CRT television in the workshop downstairs identified rather bizarrely as the "lifter" for the Microwave TIme Machine, Makise starts to put her next theory together - that rather than looking into sending an entire human being back in time, they should instead look at sending a person's memories back in time in the same way as data within a D-mail as their next experiment.

Given that neuroscience is Makise's speciality, the data transfer part of her theory shouldn't prove too difficult at all, and it's left to Okabe to go out and procure the necessary components to do this.  During this shopping trip, our wannabe mad scientist has some interesting encounters - first with Moeka, who seems to have been hoping that the lab's experiments had stopped, followed by Amane, who suggest that Makise is working for CERN; a suggestion laughed off by Okabe in light of Makise's inability to keep even the simplest things secret.

So, the group appear all set to attempt this so-called "Time Leap" using somebody's memories, while Makise seems to have at least somewhat shelved the issues she discusses with Okabe about her father - however, are they now treading a little too close to the line between enthusiastic amateurs and a group about to enter an almighty conspiracy?  With concerns that CERN are watching and threats appearing on Okabe's phone, things really do look set to get interesting now...

For all of its nonsensical constructs centred around time travel using a microwave and a CRT television, it feels like that slow build up to Steins;Gate is really ready to pay off big time - while this episode had plenty of fun and amusing moments to go around, it now also feels well-placed to explode something big in the next episode or two as we move towards the half-way point of the series, which looks likely to move us on to the "next level" from the hugely entertaining but occasionally plot progression light episodes we've been used to.  I, for one, can't wait to see where all this is headed.